The Serenity Project, NYC

This weekend I got to go to an amazing event with amazing people, The Serenity Project.

For those of you who don’t know, the Serenity Project was created by a husband and wife, Ren Allen and Keith Dixon. Ren is a makeup and body paint artist and Keith is a photographer. The got together a group of Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients and worked their magic. Ren did the body painting and Keith photographed them under water. The culmination is a beautiful calendar and all proceeds are being donated to METAvivor. You can get your copy here.

The project included some friends of mine and now some new friends of mine. I had the honor of meeting some of them at the event for the first time and catching up with some old friends as well. And even meeting, in person, friends I had made through Facebook.

Set at Venue57 in NYC, you walk in off the elevator and you see a gorgeous space and my friend, Chiara of Beauty Through the Beast, body painted for the occasion. Each image has been hung on the wall printed on glass. They looked amazing. So many different people, young and old, man and women. Yes, men get breast cancer and they even get metastatic breast cancer. The youngest in the calendar was 18 at her diagnosis. And now even younger are being diagnosed. Please know your body!

Everyone there is dressed up and happy. Yep happy at a breast cancer event. We all share something in common. We are from all over the US, but we have all been touched by breast cancer. We all feel for each other. There is lots of hugging friends and people you just met. I never felt so comfortable at an event. I’m kind of shy around people I don’t know, but you wouldn’t know that at this event. Even if I hadn’t met them, I knew them.

One of the big reasons I went to the event was that I knew a lot of my Facebook friends were going to be there and I didn’t want to miss the chance to meet some of the amazing people I have connected with on Facebook. Kelly M. Davis, Beth Fairchild, Marianne DuQuette Cuozzo, Ren Allen, Michael Hall and more. It was a truly special moment in time.

One person I think a lot of us were missing, was Champagne Joy. She was supposed to be a part of the project, but passed before it could happen. Beth Fairchild took her place. What was truly beautiful was the photo and then the explanation in the calendar. Many of the shots taken ended up having it look like Beth had angel wings. Champagne was there in spirit. Champagne’s husband joined us for the event and I was truly honored to finally meet him in person. Little did I know, he actually grew up in the Philly area and used to come to the Kutztown Folk Festival! Small world.

It was a beautiful night in NYC and I was truly honored to be in the midst of such amazing people all there with a common goal, to fight for the metastatic breast cancer community and find a way to control this horrible disease that takes way too many of my sisters from this earth. Thank you, Serenity Project for shining such a beautiful light on something that some like to ignore and think it can’t happen to me.

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Welcome to HKelly designs

It's been an interesting ride, but this breast cancer survivor is continuing to follow her dreams. Here with her business and also helping others who are dealing with cancer. Be sure to check out my shop for fun & funky handbags!
XOXO,
heidi